Mandate

The US Higgs Factory Steering Committee was appointed by DOE and NSF to provide strategic direction and leadership for the U.S. community to engage, shape and thereby advance the development of physics, experiment and detector program for a potential future Higgs factory and to ensure cooperation with our partners in the international program.

The U.S. HFCC is to coordinate efforts in the following areas:

  • (1) Physics and technical feasibility studies, including any associated design and R&D efforts, to advance various experiment detector concepts at a future Higgs factory;
  • (2) Prioritization and stewardship of the national R&D efforts should funds be identified by DOE and/or NSF;
  • (3) Development of the pre-project detector R&D scope that will be required prior to DOE and/or NSF initiating any detector project at a future e+e- collider;
  • (4) Conceptualization of the software and computing framework that will be needed to advance physics studies and R&D efforts; and to collect, store, and analyze the large volumes of physics data at future collider experiments;
  • (5) In consultation with DOE and NSF program managers, develop various funding models that will be required to support the R&D efforts described in items (3) and (4) above; and
  • (6) Ensure collaborations by the U.S. with our partners are cost-effectively carried out to advance the future Higgs factory initiatives. Such partner efforts include, but are not limited to, those being undertaken by a) the U.S. Coordinating Panel for Advanced Detectors (CPAD); b) the CERN-hosted Detector R&D (DRD) initiative; c) the European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA); and d) other major stakeholders.

The 2023 P5 strategic plan also recommended that once a specific off-shore Higgs factory project has been deemed feasible, DOE and NSF are to convene a targeted panel to consider the nature and level of U.S. contributions in the specific Higgs factory, including an evaluation of the associated schedule, budget, and risks once such information becomes available. Correspondingly, the U.S. HFCC will be uniquely positioned to inform the deliberations of this P5-envisioned targeted panel.

The mandate for the L1 groups: Detectors, Software & Computing, Physics and Communication can be found here.